


The Minotaur Under the Pool Table

by MistyBeethoven



Series: "Yes, I Really Am This Pathetic!" or "How to Say I Love You With a Story" [59]
Category: I Love You to Death (1990)
Genre: Abstinence, BBW, Bars and Pubs, Christian Character, Cousins, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Erinyes, F/M, Insecurity, Kissing, Labyrinths, Love, Love Stories, Love at First Sight, Marriage Proposal, Minotaurs, Mythology References, No Underage Sex, Older Man/Younger Woman, Overweight, Piercings, Pool & Billiards, Rehabilitation, Rings, Secret Relationship, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Indulgent, Self-Insert, Underage Kissing, Virginity, Waiting, Weight Issues, fingers - Freeform, mazes, swingsets, well close to it :/
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:28:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25494634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistyBeethoven/pseuds/MistyBeethoven
Summary: Trying to escape from a group of bullying classmates, I duck into a bar and discover a sleeping drug addict, named Marlon James, passed out under the pool table I'm trying to hide under. Thinking that the man looks like a Minotaur, I find myself falling for him almost instantly and am shocked when he introduces me to his cousin Harlan as his girlfriend.I soon discover that Marlon is not happy with his drug hazed existence and longs for an escape. It is only after I recount the tale of the Minotaur to him, however, that he finally finds the strength to find the way out of his own labyrinth on his own.
Relationships: Marlon James & Harlan James (I Love You to Death), Marlon James (I Love You to Death)/Me
Series: "Yes, I Really Am This Pathetic!" or "How to Say I Love You With a Story" [59]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1589944
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	The Minotaur Under the Pool Table

**Author's Note:**

> Oh Marlon James, I love you. You were sweet and adorable and just really did it for me.
> 
> Keanu you were great as him. ;)
> 
> After having a talk with one of my readers, the sweetheart EdgelordInBlack, I was reminded of River Phoenix's tragic death and I think that influenced this fic to a very strong degree. I mean, I had some of the bare bones of it, the meeting in the bar, the rings and ending, but not the drug aspect, the Minotaurs and labyrinths and the exploration of trying to find your way out from a prison of self destruction. And since River was in this film it just came in to effect.
> 
> I was going to dedicate this in part to River, whom was one of my crushes growing up without my realizing it for a time, but I don't want to look manipulative or gimmicky here. I probably already do a lot of times with the content and such...but I won't dare bring the memory of a poor man, whom died far too young, into it. All I will say is that God bless you, Mr. Phoenix and may you find your peace in whatever way you and He decide upon. Whatever parts were broken in you, may He fix them. And the voids and wounds you tried to run from, may they be made whole and healed by His understanding and yours. <3

The ghastly, giggling gaggle of ghoulish and gargoylish girls and guys was heading my way and I could think of nothing better to do than to duck into the bar to my right in the hope of avoiding them. I went to school with them all and I knew that their singular merriment, in all odds, had to do with them having spotted me. I was a constant source of amusement for most of my classmates during school hours, and even though this was a Saturday, I held little doubt that a bright spot of their weekend would be to tease me as well.

I was shy, awkward, mousy and fat.

I didn't need them reminding me of this and it had brought me very little joy in all of my sixteen years on the planet so I hastily fled into the bar, hoping to escape being reminded of my large size again.

"Hey, you're too young! Get outta here!" the tall and burly bartender shouted at me but I preferred his wrath to the scars that my peers would undoubtedly leave me with. So instead of backing out of the bar, I only kept right on moving forward.

Seeing a pool table ahead of me with a blond, long haired hippie-ish seeming man leaning over it, I scooted under the table in the hopes that my classmates wouldn't see me hiding underneath it. The hippie only looked slightly interested himself and kept right on trying to hit the ball with his cue. He was missing so badly, though, I knew he must be either drunk or high and feared him eventually tearing the table's green felt. Underneath it, while above me the man continued his game, I soon discovered that I wasn't alone, however. Lying on his back, there was a stoned out male in his late teens or early twenties. He was wearing a red shirt with a stripe in its middle, had part of his dark chestnut hair shaved while he wore the rest in an unruly style. On the rest of his boyish face, he sported a beard while in his nose he wore a ring. The man reminded me of a bull with that ring, like some sleeping Minotaur that I should tread very carefully lest I wake him and he eat me.

Right then, before I had a chance to even think of slipping out from the billiards table and finding another table to hide under, the boys and girls rushed into the bar, laughing.

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!" the barkeep screamed in his fury. "I DON'T WANT NO DAMN COPS COMING HERE AND ACCUSING I SERVE JUVIES!"

"Where'd the fat girl go?" a boy I recognized as Nathan asked.

"Didn't see no fat girl," the bartender lied and I could have hugged him.

"Well then you must be blind," a girl named Tammy laughed. "She's as big as a house and hard to miss."

"Plus she _smells_ ," another girl named Autumn added and I held my legs closer to me and tried not to cry.

"What smells is you lot!" the older man spat. "You got no right bein' in here but I got every right to toss you out so turn around and take your asses elsewhere!"

The gang hurled a few insults at the man before they left and I watched from my hiding place as he just returned to polishing glasses once they had left, leaving me to cry underneath the table. I'd been trying to avoid them giving me another scar to add to all of the rest, but I hadn't been successful at all. Weeping quietly, I watched as my sleeping Minotaur awoke and propped himself up on his elbows. "Hey," he said as he spotted me. "You sleep here too?"

"No," I replied, wiping my face on the back of my hand. "I came here be-because I'm as big as a house and I smell bad too."

The man gave the air a few sniffs and I watched as his one nostril flared around his nose ring. "You smell okay to me," he said. "And, I'm not good at math and all, but you really couldn't fit under a pool table if you were as big as a house. You're kind of adorable actually. Soft like a mashmallow and cute like that flying elephant with the rat from that cartoon."

He was looking at me with brown eyes that revealed he was as high as Venus but I didn't care. He was sweet and he was kind and he had made me feel better. I leaned forward and kissed him on his cheek.

"Why'd you do that?" he asked confused.

"Because you made me happy," I said.

"Oh," he said and looked off. "I like being happy."

He seemed very much in a drug fueled daze but I still liked him very much and found my hand taking his own. "I wish I could make you feel happy all of the time then," I said, halfway in love with the Minotaur I'd found under a pool table. But I doubted he could ever feel the same way for me, not with my age and the faults the other teenagers never failed in pointing out to me.

"What's your name?" he asked through his fog.

"Erin," I replied, still holding his hand.

"Pretty," he said. "Like that girl on 'The Waltons.'"

I nodded, stroking his little finger.

"I'm Marlon James," he replied.

"Like that guy from 'The Godfather' and 'Apocolapse Now' and the other guy from 'Rebel Without a Cause,'" I replied.

"Yeah," Marlon smiled brightly. He looked down at my hand caressing the smallest finger on his left hand. "You're wearing a ring!" He stated. "You sure look young to be married."

I shook my head vehemently. "No! It's my purity ring. It means I'm waiting until I'm married."

"That's cool," Marlon said, gazing straight down at the stripe on his stomach. "I got a nose ring. It means I can't sniff too much coke without it getting stuck around the hole."

"Ummm...that's interesting," I replied.

Marlon turned to look at me again and I looked down, feeling very self conscious and chubby under his stare.

"Hey what you two talking about?" the hippie asked, his bearded face suddenly appearing and peeking under the table at us.

"About doing lines and how the crack gets stuck in my nose hole around the ring," Marlon said matter of factly.

"Oh," Mr. Hippie said and nodded his head in agreement. "Remember that's why I toldja _not_ to get the damn thing in the first place."

A second or two while Marlon contemplated this. Then he proceeded to introduce me to the hippie man. "Erin this is Harlan James. He's my cousin. Harlan this is Erin but not the same one from 'The Waltons.'"

"Good to meet you," Harlan stated.

I was looking at Marlon's handsome but wired appearance, wanting to ruffle his fluffly miskept hair and was thinking once again about how the man lying next to me would never return my affection when he suddenly declared to his cousin, "Erin's my girlfriend," and I nearly died.

"That's nice," Harlan said and then returned to playing pool, the sound of his cue tearing loudly through the felt above us.

* * *

Having a boyfriend was just about as new to me as having a girlfriend was to Marlon James. Still, we managed it somehow despite him being older and an obvious addict. I just never really told my mother and sister about him, a decision we both reached together one day after I suggested it and he declined. Besides, he wasn't really _dangerous_. Although he did tell me once about how a woman with a thick accent had once hired him and Harlan to do away with her son-in-law.

"But I don't think it worked," Marlon said as we both sat in a booth in the same bar where we had met. Ben, the bartender, let me stay but continuously reminded me that he wouldn't serve me anything stronger than a warm soda.

"You don't _think_ so?" I asked confused.

"Well, Harlan keeps telling me that he wouldn't stay dead and we're not in jail so... But I heard the wife married a guy named Devo Nod shortly after...He sounds kind of familiar too."

"You can't remember?"

"I...things are in a fog a lotta the time, Erin."

I looked away, hoping that he would remember me, at least. He seemed to sense my worry though and grabbed my hand and stroked my little finger, just as I liked to do with him. "But I always'll remember the cute marshmallow girl that climbed under the pool table with me."

I smiled happily.

Caressing my finger still, he looked at the ring on my other hand again. "What _is_ a purity ring for again?" he asked in blank curiousity.

I was a little embarrassed to tell him since sex wasn't really a topic we discussed too often. Mostly Marlon was too high to do much other than talk and even then sometimes he's just sit there spaced out or pass out and I'd hold him. We had a lot of physical closeness between us, and emotional too, but not any sexual intimacy. I was grateful in a way because I doubted that I'd have the heart or strength to tell Marlon no if he wanted me to make love to him. I liked his strong body and the way he made me feel when he would kiss me, even if his breath was rather...interesting. But then it would mean that the ring on my finger was just a decoration and had been all along, nothing more than an outward show of something I did not really mean. I hated hypocrisy and falseness. If I could give myself to Marlon that easily, I'd feel bad about it.

And since Marlon James always made me feel _good_ I didn't want that.

"It means, I'm saving myself for my husband," I finally told him. "I'm waiting for my wedding night to have sex; I'm being abstinent. "

"Oh," Marlon sounded.

"You...you think I'm _weird_?" I said. Having morals and being a Christian was another thing I'd been teased about at school.

"Nah, I think that's nice," he replied. "I was just thinking, I'm not even sure if I'm a virgin or not. That's all gone too...when and to whom or even at all."

I grasped his hand then with my other hand too. "Can I be the first one you remember?" I asked.

"Are you proposing to me?" Marlon James asked.

"Yeah, I guess, I am," I smiled. "But we don't have to get married right away. Maybe after I graduate from High School."

"You're in High School?!?" Marlon exclaimed.

"Yes," I said suddenly frightened he'd dump me. "Didn't you wonder why I never saw you from nine to three thirty on weekdays?"

"He don't wonder too much about anything, jailbait," Harlan James commented as he passed by on his way to the pool table, returning from the bar with a large beer in his hand.

Marlon was sitting and pouting and I was sure he was about to end our relationship when, instead, he only stated, "I hate that I'm so stupid. You know so much more than I do and you're so much younger."

My heart broke for the man then. He was sweet and kind. Being concerned over his intelligence was something he didn't need to be when those mattered more.

"It's the drugs," I stated, kissing the cheek facing me. "You'd be the smartest boy I'd know if you weren't always high."

The man looked at me both relieved and sad in his way and said these words which stayed in my heart. "Why is it called ' _high_ ' when it can make you feel so _low_ , Erin?"

Having no answer, I only held him in the booth where we sat as Harlan occassionally managed to hit a ball behind us.

* * *

"Harlan's the one that got me started," Marlon told me one day, shortly afterwards. I'd taken him to my house while my mom and older sister had gone out of town. We were sitting on the grass in the backyard and I was running a long blade of it in my hand, trying not to cut myself in the process. Grass was like paper sometimes: if you ran its edge against your skin too quickly it would make you bleed.

Marlon was bleeding in his own way.

Free for a moment from Harlan, halting from his existence as the other man's shadow, the younger James was contemplative, although still as dazed as usual. "I was about fifteen. My parents didn't want me hanging out with him but when you're a teen you just do what your parents don't want you to do anyway. He offered 'em to me. Said they'd make me feel great. I took them and they did. Now I'm this...and I don't know how to stop...and I hate him in a way because he was supposed to look out for me...not get me hooked on shit so I'd look up to him all the time."

Marlon's face contorted in rage and bitterness as he started to mimic himself and his older cousin too. "Hey, Harlan, when's our next hit...I'll get it, Marl, don't worry it...Hey, Harlan where would I be without you, man? I don't know... _clean_?"

I watched as the man started to cry violently, bringing his legs towards his body and holding them. I moved in closer to the man immediately and wrapped my own arms around his middle as he stared at my old worn plastic swing blowing in the breeze a few feet away.

"You know," I started to say. "When I first saw you, lying under that pool table, with that nose ring you reminded me of a bull...I started thinking you were a Minotaur and that if you woke up you might eat me like the one from the labyrinth."

"What?" Marlon asked and turned to look at me, from over his shoulder, while I rested my head against his upper arm.

"Greek Mythology."

"I don't know much about that."

"It's all just really early fairy tales," I replied softly. "People, we don't understand much so we start to tell stories to help us try to figure things out. I think it's because God made us in His image so we all like to create...we're creators. Well, the Greeks used to say that there was this creature which was half man, half bull: the Minotaur. He couldn't eat like a man so he ate human beings instead. It wasn't his fault. A god made him be born out of revenge and all he could do was follow his own nature or die. But they placed him inside of a labyrinth, a maze, to contain him. It had all of these looping pathways but there was only one way in or out of it so the poor Bull-Man couldn't ever escape. He just always wound up right back where he was. You...you remind me of that bull," I restated shyly.

"Did he ever get out?" Marlon asked, his voice suddenly dead from already anticipating the answer.

"Not alive," I answered softly. "Theseus, a warrior, came and slaughtered him, as was requested of him."

"Figures," Marlon said wryly, turning to face the swingset again.

"Myths...they rarely had happy endings," I kissed his arm. "I found that out when I was a little girl and I watched this old cartoon filled with them. I hated them...Most of them were tragic...I wanted real fairy tale endings."

"Do you think we will have an ending like a myth or a fairy tale, Erin?"

I rubbed my face against his arm and felt the muscles there. Feeling them against my face, they seemed to me to whisper of Marlon James strength and tenacity, the ability he possessed to move forward, to hold on and to survive.

"If I was a Greek heroine, Marlon, I would have walked into that maze and led you out of it all by myself. But I don't think that would work here. You need to want to come out from the maze yourself or else you'll only end up trapped back inside of it again."

Marlon turned to me again and touched my face. "Well, can you be the light at the exit showing me where the way out is then?"

I nodded. "Always."

The man's other hand found my face then and I felt his lips on my own and the cold feel of the steel from the ring in his nostril brushing against my own larger nose. Slowly we fell to the grass and Marlon kissed me passionately. I wanted him to go further and wanted him to stop and felt torn about the whole thing. Then suddenly he lifted his face from mine and stared into my green-gray eyes.

"I want to, Erin, but I'm not going to. Because I remember a sweet, shy girl asking me to marry her once and my answer is yes. And I can also still remember how I wanted my Dad to treat my mom right, and how a husband is supposed to behave...and making the woman he loves do something she might regret later isn't one of those things."

He kissed my forehead and then rested his against it as we lay in the grass of my backyard. I hugged my Minotaur and started to weep because he was so much stronger and smarter than he knew. He just couldn't see past the walls of his own labyrinth.

* * *

Three days later, Marlon James told me he was about to sign himself into a drug rehabilitation program. He recounted how, when he had told Harlan, his older cousin had balked and argued with him until he had finally caved in and agreed to go with him too.

"Turns out, Erin, Harlan's felt guilty all these years for what he did to me. His brother got him started. Seems like it was a chain. He just wanted company. Still does, I guess."

"Will it be all right if he's there?" I asked worried that with Harlan present it would be harder for my man to find the way out from the addiction they shared.

"Are you kidding?" Marlon asked. "I got my mighty Erinyes at the end of the tunnel to help guide me out."

"Your Erinyes?" I said with a laugh. "How did you learn that Mr. James? I thought you didn't know any myths."

"I didn't...not until you mentioned the Minotaur. Instead of taking a hit, I went to the library and went into a corner and read a few. I still remember how to do that, at least, _read_. I read about the bull dude and his maze...and I didn't want to stay trapped like him but I wasn't sure if I could do it...then I flip a few pages and I see your name with three letters attatched to it: Y-E-S. Like you were telling me I could. So...I phoned up the center and I talked with them and they agreed to help me get abstinent. Funny. It's the same word for not having sex. Just like your ring."

Marlon James looked at me sadly then. "But you can't come to visit me, Erin. Not till I'm clean. Those are the rules."

I swallowed but gave him a nod of resolve. "I'll be here waiting...if you want me still when you get out."

"Nobody else," he said and pulled me towards him, taking my lips in his.

I placed my head against his chest and he held me. "Maybe then you can finally introduce me to your family."

"Of course. You're going to be my husband, after all," I said and kissed his chest. Feeling his hand stroking my little finger and brushing against my purity ring, it gave me an idea.

* * *

Harlan and Marlon James and myself walked to the rehab clinic together, the older man keeping several steps ahead while Marlon and I walked hand in hand. Harlan waltzed right in to the building while Marlon lingered outside with me. "Guess this is it," he said sounding almost frightened.

"Here," I said.

Holding the man's hand out, I placed my purity ring on its palm. "For strength and to remind you that I'm waiting."

Marlon stared at the ring lying there and quickly placed it on his little finger, the one I had caressed once under a pool table. Looking braver than a few seconds before, Marlon reached for his nose and removed the ring from out of the nostril. "And this is for you," he stated placing it in the palm of my hand. "To let you know your Minotaur's gonna find and eat you when he gets out. At least, after we get married."

I started to laugh, placed the ring on my left ring finger and then threw my arms around the neck of Marlon James, whom held me tightly back. He felt strong in my arms and holding me in his own; my Minotaur, intent on proving that not all stories made of Greek Myth, or reality for that matter, were destined to hold unhappy endings.

And that all labyrinths always still held, at least, _one_ way of escape.

If we but chose to seize it.

**Author's Note:**

> I had a crush on William Hurt, whom played Harlan years ago too. I even wrote him a fan letter which included some leaves which were probably black and rotten by the time they reached him. :/
> 
> When I watched "I Love You to Death" for the first time in 2012, it was to see him. But I remember liking you then, Keanu, because I heard that you and he used to talk off set about God and things like that. The fact that you were doing that attracted me...I think I had a small crush on you, though I wouldn't admit it; some seed of deep fondness.
> 
> Then in 2016 that kind of fell apart for painful reasons that really didn't have anything to do with you and I could not stand the sight of you. I was in my own labyrinth then, always ending back at the same place of my sorrow.
> 
> But now I escaped it (at least, that particular one) and it was thanks to you. Now you mean so much to me. It's funny and crazy how things work out. 
> 
> And all of these past crushes aside, you will be my last one, Mr. Reeves. I'm a faithful little nut. ;D <3


End file.
